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I'm still pruning/dead stuff everywhere while I can get away with it. I say that as we have not had any appreciable amount of snow here to stop working in the yard. The golf courses are open and doing extremely well! The local ski lifts haven't opened for the season. Goofy weather, to be sure.
I'm looking forward to pics of your ponds, Thanks Phyllis

I like to think of the land as 'bird friendly' as I'm sure you do as well.We have a local hawk, which I have named Henry, I guess he would be the only predator bird really. Mind you we have a family of Spur-winged Plover one the farm next door, they are a noisy, very noisy territorial bird, and I think a seabird, so why they have come so far inland I do not know.

I'll post a few pics of the ponds. As you say there is so much one can do, there's always something that needs a touch here or there.

Your place is SPECIAL!
Like many other "projects" there will always be that little extra to add to improve your space. Our area finally filled in and filled out so the plants compliment one another. I was hoping this would occur in my lifetime!!
The birds love it! There is a cocophony of bird chatter during daylight hours. When the yard is quiet during the day we know there is a predator bird perched nearby, waiting for the opportunity to catch a meal. The World Center for Birds of Prey is located just 4 miles from my home in Boise, Idaho. We see many species of hawks flying daily.

Sounds like us Treker. I have always had a hankering for 'wetlands' when we bought this 2 acres it had a stream and the field was very boggy, Brilliant I thought. Said to my long suffering husband, "You need to field the stream off" His look said enough, so I dropped the subject, untill HE decided it would be nice to dam the stream [permission given by the Council watchdogs] so he set to planting natives and thinking,'this is nice, maybe she was right'

The he dammed the upper stream and now we have the two ponds, with Flax and natives and also some deciduous trees for colour.

Outside my window, I can see aThrush on the clothesline and also a Kingfisher. Swallows darting around and it all looks good to me. There are flowering trees up nearer the house and we have Tui and Bellbird up here nearer the house in Spring. The council has put a covennant on our Oak tree, which I believe is the largest here in Paeroa.

I never dreamt for a moment that we'd have a place like this, it has been a blessing in so many ways. I like the sound of the butterfly area. We have a few 'Swan plants, for the Monarch B/f and another shrub I cannot remember the name and the butterflies love it, but we don't seem to get the variety you do back home.

Yes, the Kingfisher is still out there!

We planted a small woodland, full of Birch, Alder and Ilex, with a Hazelnut as well, underplanted with hundreds of bluebells.

I just checked back here and see that the last comment I made (yesterday) re: birds, etc. didn't make it on the comments. The phone rang or some other distraction and the paragraph I had written was GONE! (I probably erred by touching a key or something)
Yes, as an amateur. My interest lies in creating habitat for the birds mainly. We have half an acre that is a bird habitat. We removed all lawn and added water sources, bird baths, plantings for indigenous species to eat, that sort of stuff. We have an area devoted to butterflies as well. Fun to see it come together after 6 years.

A pleasure, and do you have an interest in bridlife? We have two acres and the lowest part we have made into wildlife ponds. Len, my husband says there are Tui down there feeding from the flowering flax. Ducks breed there as do Pukeko.

Well,...certainly interesting to an ornithologist. Sounds like Greek to me. I'm a retired carpenter and there was no mention of wood grain, stain, fasteners or project completion dates. hahahaha
Thanks for putting up with me!

I would think so Treker. the males are always more beautiful than the females....

This was one of the discoveries made by H.H. Travers when he visited the Chatham Islands in 1871. The specimens were sent to Hutton and later to Buller.

Travers writes: ?I only found this bird at Mangare where it is not uncommon. It is very fearless, possessing in other respects the habits of Miro australis and Miro longipes. Its ordinary note is also the same, but I did not hear it sing. It appears especially noxious to Anthornis melanocephala, which attacks it most savagely when they meet.?

Fleming says, ?the black robin represents an early colonisation of the Chathams by a relation of the robins which developed even longer tarsi, a strongly rounded (degenerate) wing with a very long first primary, and a fixed melanic plumage ? just as the Snares tomtit did, independently, but presumably at a later date. These features are a result of reduced selection pressure on islands lacking predators. The black robin was able to feed on the ground, abandon the counter-shading of normal Petroica plumage, and dispense with sustained flight, changes that made it vulnerable when conditions changed.?